Articles Posted in Personal Injury

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If you or someone you know has been hurt in an accident you know how devastating this can be. Injuries that are a result of an accident can be debilitating physically or cause a great deal of emotional stress. There are also financial obligations that can result if you have to seek medical attention or are not able to work. Eric Beasley, the premier Nashville Accident lawyer can help.

Often times accidents are the results of another party not acting responsibly. If your accident involved another who was acting unreasonable they may be negligent. A Nashville Accident lawyer can file a personal injury claim for you to make sure you are compensated for your suffering and loss. Serious injuries most often happen as a result of these accidents:

  • Car
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If you are injured by a faulty product or service offered by a corporation, you may be able to bring personal injury claims or product liability claims in Tennessee for the harm that you experience. When a corporation or company is local, this can be as simple as filing a complaint in your local state court. If a company is national, with offices across the country, you may be required to work a bit harder and file a claim in federal court. But what if the corporation that makes a product is international? A recent case in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over federal claims in Tennessee, recently considered whether a plaintiff could bring negligence claims against a manufacturer based in Argentina that raised the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act as a defense against a lawsuit.

In Rote v. Direccion General de Fabricaciones Miltares, Mr. Rote was injured after loading a gun with defective ammunition that exploded before the gun was in a secure position. The ammunition was manufactured by Direccion General de Fabricaciones Miltares (DGFM), an Argentinian corporation. Mr. Rote’s hand was severely harmed in the accident.

Mr. Rote filed a lawsuit in federal court, asserting personal injury and product liability claims against DGFM.  DGFM moved to dismiss, arguing that since it was an instrumentality of Argentina, it was immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The district court denied the motion, and DGFM appealed.

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In many cases in which criminal charges arise, it may also be possible for an individual litigant to bring civil claims alleging personal injuries and damages.  Thus, for instance, while the state is investigating whether a defendant committed a DUI that resulted in the death of another driver, the family of the deceased driver may also contemplate a wrongful death or personal injury claim against the offender. But what happens when the two cases are filed simultaneously? May private parties engage in discovery, including interviewing witnesses and obtaining important evidence, while a criminal investigation and prosecution are still ongoing? The Kentucky Supreme Court recently addressed this issue in a case, Lehmann v. Hon. Susan Gibson.

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Tennessee is one of a significant number of states that currently have a mandatory motorcycle helmet law.  This law requires that all drivers and passengers of motorcycles wear a helmet while the motorcycle is in operation, for their own safety and the safety of others. The law, Section 55-9-302 of the Tennessee Code, requires not only that passengers and drivers wear a helmet, but also that the helmet comply with the federal safety regulations and standards for helmets.  Certain individuals are exempted from Tennessee’s mandatory helmet requirements, including people riding on a motorcycle with an enclosed cab or one on which three wheels are touching the ground.  In all other instances, a failure to wear a motorcycle helmet can be charged as a class C misdemeanor, resulting in fines or up to 30 days in jail.

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Gun control and gun rights are a hot topic of political debate in cities and communities throughout the country, and Tennessee is not immune to such controversy.  In the wake of increasing gun violence and a rise in gun-related deaths, proponents on both sides dispute whether the route to improved public safety involves stricter gun controls or greater gun freedom.  In Tennessee, at least one legislator proposes that all individuals should be entitled to protect themselves through the purchase and use of a gun, and those who would act to impede such freedoms should be held liable for any death or injury that may result.

Recently, Republican Senator Dolores Gresham introduced Senate Bill 1736. The bill provides that business owners who operate gun-free areas can be held liable for any injury that occurs to a concealed permit holder who is on their property but is not carrying a gun because of the gun-free restrictions.

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Individuals and companies that own land or buildings owe a duty to the public to exercise due care in order to prevent the general public from being injured on their property. This often means that property owners must address known dangerous conditions on their land or in their buildings, or must make the public aware of such dangerous conditions by reasonably warning them of the risks. Property owners are not, however, required to prevent any and all injuries that might occur to an individual while on their property. This is simply impossible. Instead, landowners must only protect against those dangers or injuries that can be reasonably anticipated. A question that recently arose in the Tennessee courts is what to do when it is unclear whether the condition is one that should have been recognized as dangerous by the landowner.

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Medical malpractice cases can be a confusing. To win you must establish that you have a recoverable claim. The way you know if you have a valid legal claim is by determining if the medical team in question violated the standard of medical care.

Establishing A Valid Claim

The standard of medical care is a set of best practices established by the medical community, like the cleaning and sterilizing of surgical tools. You may wonder, “How do I establish a standard of care?” First, you need to consult an attorney who can review the facts of your case. If your attorney is convinced that your doctor made a mistake, like leaving scissors in your stomach, then he will pursue your case.

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In what is becoming a common topic on legal blogs and in the media, the tort reform caps imposed by the Tennessee Civil Justice Act are again the focus of legal and legislative attention, but this time for different reasons.  In light of recent legal challenges to the constitutionality of the cap, advocacy groups representing Tennessee doctors are seeking a constitutional amendment to the Tennessee constitution that would limit the authority of the courts to question the constitutionality of the tort reform caps.

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When attempting to prove an auto accident claim or a claim for personal injury, a detailed recollection of the facts is often crucial to liability, as are witnesses and evidence used to support those recollections. Accident liability may turn on one driver’s story versus another, and an injury may be susceptible to multiple causes without further proof about what happened.  Increasingly, however, evidence related to accidents can be provided not by the parties to a dispute themselves, but from social media accounts of bystanders and third parties who may have recorded the accident as it occurred.  While this can be helpful for proving what actually happened, it can also raise important privacy implications for victims and their alleged perpetrators. Before anyone has a chance to determine the true story of what occurred, social media posts, Instagram pictures, and submissions to news sites may craft a biased depiction of an accident timeline, or alert the public to a significant injury or death before family has been notified.

In response to these difficult circumstances, Kentucky legislators have recently introduced what they believe to be a novel solution – a bill prohibiting bystanders from posting online about an accident or injury for at least an hour after the accident occurred if the post would contain identifying information about a victim or participant to the accident.

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Slip and fall accidents are one of the most common injuries suffered. You’re walking around, thinking about what you’ve got to do and, suddenly, you find yourself on the ground. Most times it’s just an embarrassing incident and you can simply get up and go about your business, but other times you find yourself seriously injured.

When Does Liability Emerge?

If the reason you fell could have been prevented by simple maintenance on the part of the property owner where you fell, premises liability emerges. A Tennessee injury lawyer knows that many of these injuries are a result of negligence on the part of property owners.

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